


To be a Second Son

by upperplanespatron



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Attempted Murder, Character Study, Explicit Language, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV is mashup of young and older Sylvain, Pre-Fire Emblem: Three Houses, References to Illness, Support Conversation Spoilers (Fire Emblem), Sylvain Jose Gautier Needs A Hug, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:15:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25416019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/upperplanespatron/pseuds/upperplanespatron
Summary: The Margraviate of Gautier can be a violent place, all harsh and cold and unforgiving. Sylvain first learns of this grim reality on the eve of his sixth birthday.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	To be a Second Son

Everything about the Margraviate of Gautier had an undercurrent of violence. The winters were long and brutal, while whatever scraps of land remained miraculously unsalted from decades of skirmishes with Sreng were rocky and wholly unsuitable for farming. The people were winter-thin even in summer, and in the idleness that often came with poor weather turned to drunkenly fighting or fucking or both to pass the time in-between the rare moments during which the weather allowed them to venture into the commons and hunt for the black-furred foxes the Margraviate traded with for grains and fruits.

Everything about the Margraviate of Gautier had an undercurrent of violence, yet Sylvain did not fully realize this until his sixth birthday.

Sylvain was tested for his Crest much later in his life than was common, especially for a family as Crest-starved as his was. His mother had been ill with consumption while pregnant with him, which had left her coughing blood and awash with fatigue for the duration of the pregnancy. She never fully recovered, her lungs and body weak and susceptible to the winter cough for the rest of her life.

Sylvain was born perfectly healthy regardless.

Yet the family doctor had worried his parents with wild speculation on the illness of his mother being that of the blood (the doctor was an idiot, Sylvain thought when older, always too keen to discover some new and horrible disease to justify the expense of his yearly retreats to the Royal Medical Institute of Fhirdiad). 

"The tests could exasperate an illness," the man had baselessly claimed, and in their worry to lose a child which may yet bear their Crest his parents had waited.

Sylvain knew he needed a Crest from an early age: his mother whispered so to him on the nights she slipped into his bedroom and held him while she cried, her skin blooming with the bruises his father had been too drunk to bother placing in spots more easily hidden. "Do not fault your father; it is my fault our family does not have a child with a Crest." She would murmur such things into his sleep-tossed hair, though even as a child Sylvain did not understand why something so up to chance could be the fault of one mere Crest-less woman. "You need to grow big and strong for me, alright, my love? Grow strong with the blood of your father's ancestors and not my own, so that you may one day pass on that blood to your own children."

Sylvain's mother would repeat her plea until he, still groggy and only half-awake, promised that he would try. He promised that he would be strong, and he would be healthy, and he would have a Crest, and he would have children, and he would be worthy.

On the eve of his sixth birthday, his parents had brought him to the small chapel built into their manor. The walls were dark and held a strong chill even deep into summer. It reeked so strongly of the heady resin incense used during services that his little head ached.

A nun Sylvain did not recognize prayed over him before pricking his finger. He had nearly cried out at the sharp pain, but he saw the way his father's eyes hardened as his own watered and instead swallowed the yelp down.

_Be strong, and healthy, and have a Crest, and have children, and be worthy..._

The nun muttered a spell over him that made his skin tingle. His blood then seemed to glow in the sparkling candlelight, and from it arose the symbol his parents craved: the Crest of Gautier, circular save for the occasional protrusions that looked to his young mind very much like wolf teeth and death scythes.

At this his mother cried in joy and kissed his forehead; at this his father smiled for perhaps the only time in his miserable and drunken life; at this his older brother Miklan first began to drown in his own hate.

In truth Miklan was not alone, as so did Sylvain.

Everything about the Margraviate of Gautier had an undercurrent of violence, yet Sylvain did not fully realize this until his sixth birthday. He learned of this not because of his mother's bruises, or his pricked finger, or the way his Crest seemed decorated with the tools of warfare. 

He learned of this violence because the night he discovered his Crest was also the night Miklan first tried to kill him.

Even in summer, the Margraviate of Gautier had a chill. The chill was strong enough for sheets of frost to eat at the plants come early morning, strong enough to creep through the flesh and to the bones, strong enough to send a wet and shivering child to their grave.

On the eve of his sixth birthday - or, perhaps, early in the morning, though Sylvain hardly cared of the exact time in retrospect - Sylvain nearly died, frightened and alone deep within the well Miklan had tossed him into. And while he sat in the freezing water, crying and blubbering, his crest did nothing to help him. His own privileged blood did not transport him away and to the safety of a warm hearth, nor did it form a ladder and pull him from the watery grave. Goddess-blessed as his blood supposedly was, the Goddess still did not descend from the Heavens and spirit away the suffering child.

No, Felix did that. His friend did that. Not his blood, not Crests, not his family or his ancestors or the Goddess or his family's _fucking Lance of Ruin._

No one seemed impressed by his realization regarding the uselessness of Crests within his own world of winter and violence. No one cared, especially early the next morning as a sore and sleep-deprived Sylvain lied through his gapped-teeth as to what he was doing out so late the night before. His father questioned him endlessly: why he was in a well of all places, why he was so _damn foolish,_ why he was persistent in getting the younger Fraldarius boy dragged into trouble with him (" _dragged into trouble"_ he had said, not "s _aved the life of my son_ "). 

Sylvain lied and his father believed him, then beat the child black and blue for the trouble. Miklan never thanked him for placing the blame upon himself, never thanked him for possibly saving his life considering their bastard of a father's predisposition to anger, penchant for beatings, and near obsession with producing a child with the Crest of his House.

Miklan didn't thank him, and Slyvain didn't hate him for it. He hated him for a lot of other things, but not for that. After all: everything about the Margraviate of Gautier had an undercurrent of violence, and Miklan was simply acting the part.

**Author's Note:**

> ((side note: this isn't how crests are actually tested for in canon i just liked the imagery of this depiction better))


End file.
